“The money — it was only the money. Kissinger’ s book and life do NOT bear out the “ baked in the cake” scenario. “
It doesn’t matter what Kissinger thought, he wasn’t around in 1964 when the no-win strategy was decided upon.
McNamara and Bundy and McNaughton were the architects of the policy when it originated in 1964 and they explicitly acknowledged that their strategy wasn’t one that involved victory. It’s in their memos that McMaster cites.
Their goal was too discourage Hanoi from keeping the fight going. But they were lawyers and didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Pentagon war gamers had already predicted that the gradualism strategy would just harden Hanoi’s position and result in eventual defeat for our side. Hanoi was willing to endure far heavier casualties than McNamara and Bundy and McNaughton thought they would accept. But Hanoi got a vote on that and all that they had to do was wait us out.
I know your rationalization for the “defeat” ( we won and left!). I respectfully believe that is bull $hit. It is an attempt to shift the blame to others than the Democrat party murderers of 1 million Vietnamese. It does not work with me because it is not accurate. The Democrats assassinated 1 million Vietnamese freedom loving people— 1 MILLION!!They cut off the MONEY!!